How Does One Go About Signing Up For The Wiki?

[STiFU]

I'd say omit the last part of the title, starting with "using". The series description and the topic of the article should remain in the title...

 

Anyway GREAT work!!

[Renzatic]

No problem Also, just a small remark, while I am one of the "edit oh submit dang I need to fix atyposubmit no another typo"people (basically ADS with the submit button I'd still like you to go a little bit easier and do more edits before you submit - right now the recent changes list on the wiki overflows and one needs to view "more than 100" just to see anything else I think this will sort itself out a bit once you are more familiar with the wiki - but for now, please use the preview button a tad bit more

 

Will do.

 

Though I have noticed a checkbox labeled "this is a minor edit" during my massive bouts of tweaking and prodding. If I were to click that, could I still go through and clean up my articles without it spamming the Recent Changes page? Even if it does, I'll still try to keep my edits down to a bare minimum. But since I have this bad habit of only noticing problems after I've submitted them, I want to make sure I can change it without messing around with the flow of the wiki too much.

 

If you are not seeing the move button, it might be that you don't have the proper permissions. Then please ask greebo if he can fix that. Otherwise, tell me the new name and I move it for you.

 

If I do have the option, it's not immediately apparent. I'll dig around a bit, and if I don't find it, I'll hit up Greebo. Not that it's an absolutely imperative thing. Hopefully, I should only have to do it this one time.

 

I'd say omit the last part of the title, starting with "using". The series description and the topic of the article should remain in the title...

 

I'm thinking "Photoshop 1: Tile with Alpha Masks". Remember it's a part of a series, and to me at least, the most important part of that tutorial are the masks. The tiling part is just there to acclimate people to the concept while showing them a neat and handy trick in the process.

 

Then I'm thinking "Photoshop 2: Tweaking With Adjustment Layers" for the next part. The parts after should be pretty easy to name, Like "Brick Wall Prepping", "Brick Wall Texturing", and "Brick Wall Detailing", "Brick Wall Normalmap", with a Photoshop 3,4,5 and 6 tagged before them.

 

Conciseness ain't exactly my strong suit, but hopefully that should work.

[Tels]

Will do.

 

Though I have noticed a checkbox labeled "this is a minor edit" during my massive bouts of tweaking and prodding. If I were to click that, could I still go through and clean up my articles without it spamming the Recent Changes page? Even if it does, I'll still try to keep my edits down to a bare minimum. But since I have this bad habit of only noticing problems after I've submitted them, I want to make sure I can change it without messing around with the flow of the wiki too much.

 

The "minor edit" checkbox just divides the edits into "major" and "minor" and one can filter out minor ones when viewing the recent changes. However, most people don't use the checkbox (and there is no guarantuee that anyone does). I usually tick it if I just correct a typo, but even I might forget. So it's useful to use it, but I usually never need it in the "changes list" (mostlaý because our TDM wiki has less edits per year than some big wikis have per day

 

And yes, I usually see the typos RIGHT after I clicked submit, too

 

Don't worry, its not a real problem, just something I wanted you to be aware of. I'd take a "OMG 1000 changes per day" wiki over a "OMG 10 changes last month" (which we actually have, most months...)

 

Here:

 

 

You see it only if you are logged in.

 

[This post has been editied 1000 times by Tels. Last time: 10 seconds ago. It still contains 5 typos. Expect an edit any second now...]

[Renzatic]

Whew...damn. Bunch of stuff done

 

Changes:

 

-Included all my tutorials to the {{tutorial-textures}} category. They're now sitting there, all nice and snug under P.

 

-Moved -overly long title here- to Photoshop 1: Tiling With Alpha Masks

 

-Added Photoshop 2: Tweaking With Adjustment Layers to the Wiki. Read it, and tell me what you think.

 

-During the making of Photoshop 2, I thought of something better, which resulted in me reuploading 6 of my pictures after I uploaded them not even half an hour before. This is bound to piss someone off. Sorry.

 

-Added Links in The Toolbar Explained to Photoshop 1 & 2.

[Tels]

Very cool! Although I use Gimp, the tutorials will still come in handy, and for all the PS users out there, they are really good to have. Thank you!

[Renzatic]

Thanks.

 

If at any point you want to write a Gimp specific mirror of these tutorials, then feel free. I'll even help you out if I'm able. Hell, I'd probably do it myself, but since I'm already teaching myself Blender for a future set of tutorials, I don't really have the time (read: inclination) to learn yet another program.

 

Also. It begins...

 

Photoshop 3: Stone Wall Phase 1

 

Phase 1 covers the basic construction of the alpha mask.

 

Phase 2 covers...deep breath...roughing up the stone wall, using the free transform tool to tilt, skew, and rotate the stones for even more roughness, making shadows using Gaussian blur layers, using various pictures culled from CGTextures to make your stone wall, using layers and alphas to darken some of the stones for variety, painting a random shadow layer for extra goodness, and other miscellaneous stuff.

 

Phase 3 covers extra details. The moss between the cracks, layer FX, grungemaps, and I might go ahead and add how to paint in cracks, which I didn't cover in the original series. If you managed to get through phase 2, this is the breather episode.

 

Phase 4 I'll be writing specifically for TDM. It's the big normalmapping extravaganza. I gotta say. If you all want to make my life easier...and I'm sure some of you at least have that most noblest of intentions at heart...you'll go out and spend $100 for a copy of Crazybump. It'd literally cut this phase into a third of the size. But I know you're all ultimately cheap bastards, noble though your intentions may be, so I'll probably have to do things the hard way. Damnit. :mad:

 

If you want a more intimate preview of what's to come, then Click Here. Look at that layer bar. That's alot of layers, right? Soon, you all will know the various joys of making that many layers for your own textures (well..hopefully)! Exciting times!

[Tels]

Thanks.

 

If at any point you want to write a Gimp specific mirror of these tutorials, then feel free. I'll even help you out if I'm able. Hell, I'd probably do it myself, but since I'm already teaching myself Blender for a future set of tutorials, I don't really have the time (read: inclination) to learn yet another program.

 

Oh noes, I did some tutorials (the "Make LOD models" one, and I forgot which else), and I know what a time sink these are. My hands are full already, so I pass

 

Thanx for your work!

[Nosslak]

Also. It begins...

 

Photoshop 3: Stone Wall Phase 1

Looks pretty good, the only thing I feel is missing is a preview of the final results at the start.

 

Phase 2 covers...deep breath...roughing up the stone wall, using the free transform tool to tilt, skew, and rotate the stones for even more roughness, making shadows using Gaussian blur layers, using various pictures culled from CGTextures to make your stone wall, using layers and alphas to darken some of the stones for variety, painting a random shadow layer for extra goodness, and other miscellaneous stuff.

Why don't you just use outer glow set to a black color with normal or multiply as the blending mode for the shadows between the stones? It'd give you one layer less to look at and be very flexible (if you add stones they'll be shadowed automatically.

 

Also it might be useful to teach readers to name their layers and/or move them into groups as it is a pain to come back to an old texture with a lot of unnamed and ungrouped layers a couple months later.

 

EDIT: How do I get a darker Photoshop like the one you've got? I can't seem to find anywhere to change the theme.

Edited March 25, 2012 by Nosslak

[RPGista]

Hey man, this is awesome, exactly what is needed, fully descriptive information with generous graphical support, focused and fun, all here inside the wiki so you have the information at your disposal. Brilliant work, your ability to writte those and the amount of info is amazing. Soon as I finish my mission I'll be going over these for sure (fingers crossed for a modeling one like the Modo tutorial sometime in the future) .

[Renzatic]

Looks pretty good, the only thing I feel is missing is a preview of the final results at the start.

 

Not a bad idea. I'll add a preface in showing off the final results when I go edit it here in the next few.

 

Why don't you just use outer glow set to a black color with normal or multiply as the blending mode for the shadows between the stones? It'd give you one layer less to look at and be very flexible (if you add stones they'll be shadowed automatically.

 

Yet another not a bad idea. The method I used to shadow the cracks between my bricks only produced barely noticeable results. Using an black outer glow would be considerably easier, and might actually look a little better.

 

Also it might be useful to teach readers to name their layers and/or move them into groups as it is a pain to come back to an old texture with a lot of unnamed and ungrouped layers a couple months later.

 

I do cover naming layers throughout the tutorial (though admittedly I'm not always consistent about it).Groups? I didn't use them for the brick wall, but they are handy. I should touch on them before I close it all out.

 

EDIT: How do I get a darker Photoshop like the one you've got? I can't seem to find anywhere to change the theme.

 

Here you go. Adobe Photoshop CS6 Beta. I'd almost consider upgrading to it simply for the darker color scheme. It's so much easier on the eyes.

 

Hey man, this is awesome, exactly what is needed, fully descriptive information with generous graphical support, focused and fun, all here inside the wiki so you have the information at your disposal. Brilliant work, your ability to writte those and the amount of info is amazing. Soon as I finish my mission I'll be going over these for sure (fingers crossed for a modeling one like the Modo tutorial sometime in the future) .

 

Thanks!

 

I'm really deeply considering making a Blender video tutorial sometime in the near future. I'm waiting for the BMesh builds to hit release status before I commit to it, since it's got all the cool, handy tools that Blender's been missing for all these years (polygon inset, edge bevels, and knife FTW). We'll see how it goes in the next couple of months. If I've got the time, I've got this idea for an Art Nouveauish turn-of-the-century sanatorium bouncing around in my head. Might make a room tutorial out of it.

 

edit: Instead of a preface, I added a title card. For some reason it looks funny to me. As in haha funny. Like it's trying too hard. But hey, it's there.

[SiyahParsomen]

thanks for the tutorials Renzatic. It's time to install ps for me.

[Bikerdude]

Good Tuts there mista!

[Renzatic]

Photoshop 4: Brick Wall Phase 2.

 

Holy damn, this one was a ton of work. I'd say more, but after doing all that, I don't feel like spending any more time in front of my computer than absolutely have to.

 

Enjoy it!

[Tels]

Very cool!

 

One sugestion that I have is, that we add a template, that includes some sort of side-bar, or header or footer. Inside that, a list with all the tutorials would come up (the current one will be automatically a bold, non-link text)

 

Here is an example template: http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Template:Whatsnew&action=edit

 

Then you can just include {{ps-tutorial}} in each tutorial, and it will do all the nec things (like putting the article into the right categories) and also the user gets an easy navigation (w/o having to first go to one of the tutorial categories).

 

I can make the template for you if you want.

[Renzatic]

Sure, I'll use it. It'll be a much smoother implementation than my links subsection I tucked down at the bottom of Photoshop 0.

[Tels]

Should I create the template for you?

[Renzatic]

Sorry. Yeah. Please do.

 

Also, apologies over the lack of updates tonight. I didn't have much time to do it, what with me just now getting home and all. But on a good note, Photoshop 5 should be up tomorrow with a rather modest to moderate amount of added content. I figured it'd be a great way to segue some extra normalmapping tips and tricks into the mix, so I want to expand upon them accordingly.

[Tels]

I created two templates, one for a floating sidebar:

 

http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Template:Photoshop-tutorials

 

and one for a bottom bar:

 

http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Template:Photoshop-tutorials-footer

 

Their format should be self-explanatory so you can add more links to them when needed.

 

Unfortunately, now some images do not show, I think maybe the wiki hits some sort of inclusion limit - I know this can be increased, but only modetwo can do this...

[Renzatic]

From the department of Better Late Than Never comes...

 

Photoshop 5: Stone Wall Phase 3

 

I've gone ahead and added the floating header and the footer. Only thing is, adding more links isn't quite self-explanatory. Well, maybe it is, but I'm rather worn out at the moment, and can't really think about anything more complicated than sleeping.

 

And since I've got the next two days free, the very indepth normalmapping tutorial will be coming very, very soon.

[Renzatic]

It Is Done!

 

The Rough Stone Wall tutorial is finished! I've got one more tutorial I plan on doing, then I can call it a day on the entire Photoshop series.

 

I'll do it in a couple of days. Right now, I think you've all got enough to keep you busy for a couple months at least.

[Renzatic]

Okay, question. How do I edit my title card at the top of the page? It isn't giving me the option for some reason.

[STiFU]

Very good work, Renzatic! Thanks! with the last tutorial, you forgot to add a pair of braces "[]" so that the image loads up and you forgot to add the proper template.

 

I think you can just upload a file with the same name and it will replace the original image.

[Renzatic]

Okay. I'm an idiot. Didn't see the big "edit" tag at the top of the page. I've been using the edit keys located next to my chapter headers. It's now fixed, and I went ahead and added the header and footer to all the previous tutorials in the series.

 

Once I figure out how to edit the template to add my Photoshop 5 & 6, I'll be rolling.

[RPGista]

Brilliant tutorials, very well written and illustrated, once again. I really like the friendly explanations and the calm to explain each step with details. Thanks a lot.

[SiyahParsomen]

Darkmod taffers should feel lucky to have these awesome tutorials.